Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Slaughter tops Assini

Democrat Louise Slaughter has won her House of Representative re-election bid, but by a very narrow margin.

This afternoon, the Monroe County Board of Elections counted approximately 2,800 remaining absentee and affidavit ballots cast in the 25th Congressional District race. After the tallies, Slaughter held an 869 vote lead over her Republican opponent, Gates Supervisor Mark Assini, according to the board. She received a total of 96,800 votes to Assini's 95,931.

In a brief interview, Assini said that had talked Slaughter and conceded the race. He congratulated her on a hard- fought campaign, wished her luck, and told her he'll keep her in his prayers, he said.

Assini's performance in the race surprised a lot of people, including Democrats and the local media. Retail politics — going out and talking to as many individual voters as possible — was key, he said.

"Our grassroots campaign was extremely powerful," he said.

And Assini also said that he "will absolutely keep an eye on" running for Congress again in two years.

The results won't be official for at least another week, and the Board of Elections will have some more ballots to count next week. But at this point, the board only has three or four uncounted ballots in hand and doesn't expect many more, Democratic Elections Commissioner Tom Ferrarese says. The only incoming ballots that must be counted at this point are military absentee ballots, which must arrive at the Board of Elections by November 17.

A member of a local church allegedly called Homeland Security after two male Nazareth College students, both Muslim, attended a service and coffee hour at the church on Sunday, said Nazareth president Daan Braveman in a letter addressed to the "Campus Community."